A recent post on New Mexico’s Las Cruces News announced that the State’s Taxation and Revenue Department will soon be holding its annual outreach program in reuniting NM unclaimed property with its owners. “We’ll be advertising in newspapers all over the state, and we’ll be available at our booth during the state fair,” Rick Homans, secretary for the department says. “We encourage everyone to review our lists to see if we might be holding some of their property or money — and we will be more than happy to give it back.”

Like most states, NM holds New Mexico unclaimed money and property for its owners forever until they are claimed. Lost and abandoned financial assets are collected by the State after if they go unclaimed after a few years and the businesses and financial entities are required by the National Unclaimed Property Law to hand them over. People lose track of bank accounts, stocks, bonds, insurance policies and the like when they change addresses or switch jobs. Unclaimed tax refund checks are also categorized as New Mexico unclaimed funds and over $10 million worth of these are owed to 35,000 NM senior citizens and disabled veterans who have until October 15 of this year to claim them. After that, the unclaimed tax stimulus checks will be turned-over to the state where they can still be claimed after some processing.

Local newspapers will advertise names of people owed New Mexico unclaimed property throughout September and outreach booths will be set-up in State Fairs also. Last year almost a million fair-goers were reunited with their missing money from these state unclaimed property booths. This year, a total of 748,000 citizens are owed New Mexico unclaimed property worth roughly $110 million!

Too busy to visit the State fairs? Find out how to do a proper and effective unclaimed money search yourself and avoid ‘finders’ who are just after a chunk of you lost money.